New Ideas and Busy Times

Its been a busy month for us, prepping for the Saskatoon Expo and then trying to make sense of the results. And in amongst all of that, we still had to live our normal lives! As October rolls onto the scene, we are taking time to reflect and gather our resources, both physical and psychological.

Colette has been busy working on samples of some of our new designs – more on that later – while Shauna has been adding more items to our Etsy store and getting our digital presence going. The excitement of the can has finally subsided, and we have begun to look towards other shows. Our next stop will be Outlook, SK, for a trade show there in November. This will give us plenty of time to decompress and prepare for the show.

New Ideas

As mentioned earlier, Colette has been busy working on samples of some of our new ideas. We are working hard to find the right mix of unique and eye-catching. The Expo gave us a great idea of what hit that target, and what missed.

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The various accessories (shown above) were only mildly successful. We are confident that this was largely due to how we had them displayed, and intend to remedy that at the next show. The most popular by fair were the Kids’ Neckties and the Bowties.

We have been thinking about ideas to add to this grouping, and we think that we will do a variation on the Headties, and a smaller size of bowtie. Pincushions are another idea that is rolling around in my mind, but I haven’t decided on that for sure yet.

On the embroidery front, we have been testing new designs. Some were available in pattern form at the Expo and online, but we will now have a physical version for you to see. This includes our In Another Castle pattern, and we are hopeful that seeing it in it’s full glory will help others get an idea of what it looks like.

In Another Castle

A new pattern that we have have been working on the sample of is our Cheersquid pattern. This pattern is based on the artwork of E Porter, aka Snowbringer. I think it will be a huge success.

Cheersquid Believes in You!!!

Saving the best for last, we came up with a different idea that we thought people would really like – family portraits!

These will be done in the same style as our various character cross stitches, and you will have the option to have a portrait of your family as it or in cosplay!

Below is a sample of Ian, myself, and Colette as the crew from Star Trek: Voyager.

Orders for these will be available on our Etsy store soon, or if you will be at Outlook in November, pop by our booth and we will do up a special order for you!

The countdown begins towards our next show, and we are busy with orders we got at the last one, as well as getting new stuff done!